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THE INDEPENDENT GUIDE TO TECHNOLOGY NOVEMBER 16, 2004

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Forward Thinking

M I C H A E L J . M I L L E R

Microsoft wants its

software to control all

the TV you watch, all

the music you listen

to—in fact, all the

ways you get digital

entertainment.

Microsoft’s Growing Family

www.pcmag.com NOVEMBER 16, 2004 P C M A G A Z I N E 7

K

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOM O’CONNOR

I’ve been playing with the latest versions of Micro-soft’s Media Center 2005 software for the

past few weeks. Over-all, I’m quite pleased. More important than t h e s o f twa re i t s e l f, though, is its role in Microsoft’s grand scheme for connecting all the gadgets you use for cap-turing, managing, and playing digital audio, video, photos, and more. When you consider the whole set of Media Center products, the plan is a bold one.

• Windows XPMedia Center Edition is operating-system

software for desktops and notebooks. It’s designed to be the center of your digital home, controlling your audio, TV, photos, and traditional PCfunctions.

• Windows Media Player, which works on all ver-sions of Windows XP, is designed to manage and play audio and video.

• Media Center Extenders are devices that connect your TVto your Media Center PCvia wired or wire-less networking and send TV, video, audio, and photos throughout your home. Media Center Extenders for Xbox are kits that include a sensor, a remote, and software, to turn your Xbox into a similar device. • Windows Media Connect is embedded software for other devices (not Media Center Extenders) that connects them to a Windows PCand lets them share data with it.

• Portable Media Centers are handheld devices that display video and audio from your Windows computer. These are not to be confused with portable

PCs running Media Center Edition.

• Windows Mobile is software for all sorts of portable devices, including Portable Media Centers, Pocket PCs, and smart phones.

Confused yet? I sure am. Yet Microsoft’s strategy couldn’t be simpler: The company wants its software to control all the TVyou watch, all the music you listen to—in fact, all the ways you get dig-ital entertainment.

The plan has its ad-vantages. Microsoft soft-ware in all these devices should make everything work better together, and a common interface should make hardware easier to use. Also, a single vendor might be able to take care of basic issues, such as security, setup, and digital rights, more easily than several different vendors.

But there’s a downside, too. One vendor means less competition, and in the long run, that may mean less innovation. For instance, I think digital products could get easier to use, and I’d be interested to see what kind of 10-foot interface Apple could come up with.

And what about digital rights and privacy? The pri-vacy concern is mostly theoretical; although a lot of information will be passing through one company, Microsoft has had a pretty good track record for pro-tecting data privacy. But as for digital rights, the differ-ence is clear: Microsoft takes a much stronger view of protecting digital rights than most other consumer electronics vendors, possibly because the company’s size would make it a prime target for lawsuits.

This means that taking content recorded on a Media Center and passing it around to your friends is much more difficult than with competing products. That’s okay, but you’re much more restricted in using your content wherever you want. Balancing the rights of content owners and con-sumers will continue to be a big issue over the next few years.

Altogether, though, at the moment, Microsoft has the most

advanced, comprehensive plan for connecting all your digital-content products in the home.

HP Media Center Extender Creative Zen

Portable Media Center

Gary Shapiro, President and CEOof the Consumer Electronics Association, recently stopped by PC

Magazine Labs and spent some time talking with us. The CEAis an interesting organization. Although known by many mostly for hosting the annual International Consumer Electronics Show, the CEAis actually a trade organization representing the companies that make and sell most

CEgadgets.

We had a fascinating discussion about digital rights in the era of the connected home. Shapiro said his group supports the freedom of manu-facturers to build products without re-strictions, and he mentioned the major battles that have raged in the past and that continue to be fought over home recording. Shapiro believes consumers should be able to move content from one product to another—from home to the car, for instance. But he noted that his view was not shared by Hollywood, which has supported re-strictions on such rights.

In particular, he discussed his organization’s op-position to the INDUCEAct (officially, the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004), according to which individuals or corporations could be held liable for rights-infringing acts that “they intend to

induce.” This legislation, sponsored by Senate Judi-ciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), is aimed at cutting music piracy on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. But many people, as well as the CEA, have argued that the legislation could hurt normal consumers and CE

manufacturers.

Shapiro was quick to point out that he frowns on commercial piracy: “When you take something that isn’t yours and sell it, that’s wrong.” He told us he per-sonally believes that concerns about losses from pi-racy are greatly overstated, though, and said that much of the downloaded material would never have been purchased anyway.

That pretty much mirrors what I’ve been saying all along. I’m not in favor of people downloading music they didn’t pay for without the permission of the peo-ple who created it, but I’m also very concerned about digital rights restrictions that hurt those of us who do buy the content. I like ripping the CDs I pay for and putting them on my desktop, laptop, music player, or mix CDs—and I sure don’t want those devices to stop me from doing that.

Windows Media Center is the core of Microsoft’s strategy, and the 2005 edition is a big step forward. From a features standpoint, the most impressive advance is the improved picture

quality on big displays. On the new machines I’ve been using in our labs, the picture quality is much better than on my older Media Center PCat home. Also, the TVfunctions are improved. The system now supports up to three tuners, so you can watch one show while recording an-other. It has HDTV support (though it’s confined to a single

tuner for now), the ability to burn recorded TV

directly onto a writable DVD(Sonic PrimeTime of-fers a similar feature for older versions of Media Cen-ter), and better features for sorting and selecting movies to record.

The product I’m most looking forward to is the new Media Center Extender. I’ve tried a couple of the wireless media receivers on the market, but haven’t been impressed with their usability. And as far as I’m

concerned, distributing recorded TVon a home net-work is the killer application. (Distributing DVD play-back would be cool too, but rights management prevents it.) The Extender should be easier to set up, though it requires an 802.11 a/g network to distribute TV wire-lessly, and it works only with Media Center Edition 2005. I’m eager to try this in my home— we’ll see if it passes the real-world test.

I’ve found that downloading content to a Portable Media Center works quite well, and I’ve been reasonably happy with the video content (though it’s heavily compressed) and the audio. You have to sync from Windows Media Player, however, not from the 10-foot Media Center interface. I’ve also just started trying out a Windows Mobile device with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. This works well if you don’t want to carry a separate MP3 play-er. But I’m still not convinced I would watch a lot of

TVon a phone.

Talking Digital Rights

P C M A G A Z I N E NOVEMBER 16, 2004 www.pcmag.com 8

MORE ON THE WEB:Join us online and make your voice heard. Talk back to Michael J. Miller in our opinions section, www.pcmag.com/miller.

Forward Thinking

M I C H A E L J . M I L L E R

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Copyright 2004, SafeNet, Inc. All rights reserved. SafeNet and SafeNet logo are registered trademarks of SafeNet, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFNT)

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www.pcmag.com NOVEMBER 16, 2004 P C M A G A Z I N E 11

www.pcmag.com

O N T H E C O V E R Dvorak: Google vs. Microsoft page 77

DVD and DV Camcorders page 136

Printers page 112 Media Center 2005

page 30

Best Free Software page 101

CONTENTS

䊛

NOVEMBER 16, 2004 • VOL. 23 NO. 20

27

Editors’ Choices

A comprehensive list of our current picks in nearly 100 categories.

COVER: SCREEN IMAGE © LUCASFILM LTD. & TM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE STAR WARS TRILOGY DVD WAS RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 21.

P E R S O N A L P R I N T E R S

112

More Than Just

a Pretty Picture

In the market for a new personal printer? Check out 21 of the latest all-purpose and photo ink jets, as well as six dedicated photo printers.

101

GOES TO

A L S O I N T H I S I S S U E 73 Feedback

178 Backspace

While licensing costs of mainstream

apps continue to soar, freeware

competitors are flourishing and

improving. So why buy? You

can be productive

and

stick

it to The Man. We review

21 apps to replace

Microsoft Office, Word,

Excel, PowerPoint, and

Access; and various

graphics tools.

30 Alienware DHS-511

31 Gateway

820GM

31 HP Media

Center Photosmart PC m105y Series

32 iBuyPower Media-XP

34 VoodooPC Vibe Media CenterL

34 HP Media Center Extender

36 ZT Media Center PC A5346

36 Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router

43 McAfee Personal

Fire-wall Plus 6.0

43 Norton Personal

Firewall 2005

44 ACT! 2005

Premium for Workgroups

44 QuickBooks

SimpleStart

46 Paint Shop Pro 9

46 PassAlong.com

50 Canon EOS 20DL

52 SecureZIP 8.0 for

Windows

52 WinRAR 3.4

54 Ask Jeeves

54 A9.com

55 OQO model 01L

56 Samsung ML-2250M

56 Xerox DocuMate 252

There’s a lot of hype out there when it comes to when it comes to

buying a camcorder. We also present reviews of 17 MiniDV and DVD camcorders for $1,000 or less.

M O B I L E

126

The Essential

Buying Guide for

The Business Traveler

Life on the road is never easy—

particularly when the tray table in front of you serves as your desk several times a week. If

productivity is key while you’re traveling, make sure you have the right tools.

P C M A G A Z I N E NOVEMBER 16, 2004 www.pcmag.com 12

84

Solutions

84 Understanding Queries and Reports:

You’ve stored lots of important data in your Microsoft Access database; we show you the best ways to display or output it.

86 Internet: Love Google? Now you can conduct Google searches from almost anywhere, via e-mail, instant

messaging, RSS, or even your cell phone.

90 Internet Professional: Though browsers are for viewing Web sites, you can easily extend yours to help you build sites.

88 Security Watch: Logging into Windows XP as a limited user provides security benefits, but it has downsides befitting the name.

93 User to User: How to scan slides and negatives, restore suppressed dialogs in Outlook Express, and more.

Online

www.pcmag.com

DVORAK ONLINE K Each Monday, John C. Dvorak gives you his take on what’s happening in high tech today. Visit

www.pcmag.com/dvorak.

Coming up:

• Build the most PC for your money • New strategies for mass storage • Ubuntu Linux preview

(www.extremetech.com)

TO P 1 0 1 W E B S I T E S

E X C L U S I V E C O L U M N S

ULANOFF ONLINE K And each Wednesday, Lance Ulanoff puts his own unique spin on technology. Visit

www.pcmag.com/ulanoff.

F I R S T L O O K S

TO O L S YO U C A N U S E

Discussions: Log on and participate!

(http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag)

Downloads:Check out our indexed list of utilities from A to Z.

(www.pcmag.com/utilities)

Opinions

7 Michael J. Miller: Forward

Thinking

75 Bill Machrone

77 John C. Dvorak

79 John C. Dvorak’s Inside Track

81 Bill Howard

172

After Hours

172 Sound Tricks: Even those of us who aren’t musicians can use music-generation software to create royalty-free sound tracks from scratch. We review five products that help you do just that.

174 Gear and Games: Madden NFL 2005 and EverQuest II; the newest personal-use PDA apps; Griffin EarJams; the Timbuk2 Digital DJ Hip Pack.

It’s time for the fall edition of our Top Web Sites report. Many of those chosen will be familiar, but we guarantee a few surprises, too. And, as always, we’ve created a downloadable favorites installer containing all the links. (http://go.pcmag.com/topwebsites)

New reviews every week! Coming soon:

•Avery Personal Label Printer 9100 •BTO PlusDeck2

•Oki C5400dtn Color LaserM

•Ricoh CL2000

(www.pcmag.com/firstlooks) C A M C O R D E R S

136

Reality DV

21

Pipeline

21 Ultra wideband spreads out.

21 Oakley’s view: MP3 sunglasses.

21 Sony’s PlayStation 2 goes on an extreme diet.

22 Adobe’s latest: photos in the raw.

22 Airport TV—wireless to your laptop.

22 Beating security threats through epidemiology.

24 COMING ATTRACTIONS: Olympus C-7000

Over a million IT Professionals

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you evaluate your organization’s security practices, and identify areas for improvement.

Free Security Tools React more effectively to potential security threats. Take advantage of

free tools and technologies like the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and Software Update Services.

© 2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Free Updates and E-mail Alerts Stay on top of the latest security issues quickly and

easily by signing up for free Microsoft Security Communications.

Millions of your peers are turning to the Security Guidance Center for the latest in security. By visiting regularly, they get the tools, guidance, and training needed for better protection against viruses and other security threats. Visit microsoft.com/security/IT today and see for yourself the newest additions, including:

Visit www.samsungusa.com/printer or call 1-800-SAMSUNG

• High performance color printing with lowest cost per page among printers in its class*

• Network-ready, wired and wireless options and solutions • Built-in auto-duplexing for two-sided printing;

850-sheet capacity with optional cassette • Free 1-year on-site service program included**

©2004 Samsung Electronics America, Inc. Samsung is a registered mark of Samsung Electronics Corp., Ltd. NO•NOIS is a trademark of Samsung Electronics Corp., Ltd. *Based on results of printers independently tested by NSTL, Inc., full report available. **Visit www.samsungusa.com for complete service program details. Color output simulated. Available at:

Samsung’s new CLP-500 Series Color Laser Printers.

It’s your image. And our reputation. So at Samsung Electronics, we engineer our color printers around the productivity needs of business. We have hundreds of engineers whose entire focus is exploring new color technologies. And with ownership of the entire manufacturing, technology, design and development process, we can offer new solutions faster and more affordably than other printer providers. The results can be seen in our new CLP-550 color laser, which delivers photo-quality on plain paper, handles two-sided tasks with ease, and comes with print performance and paper capacities never before seen in its class. It’s one of many solutions to come from Samsung Electronics, a company taking color and what it can do for you, to a whole new level.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFMichael J. Miller

EXECUTIVE EDITORS Stephanie Chang, Ben Z. Gottesman, Carol Levin, Lance Ulanoff (Online)

ART DIRECTOR Richard J. Demler

DIRECTOR, PC MAGAZINE LABS Nick Stam

SENIOR EDITORS Jamie M. Bsales (First Looks), Vicki B. Jacobson (Online), Konstantinos Karagiannis (First Looks), Carol A. Mangis (After Hours, Special Projects), Sebastian Rupley (West Coast, Pipeline), Sharon Terdeman (Solutions)

MANAGING EDITOR Paul B. Ross

ASSOCIATE EDITORSSarah E. Anderson, Sean Carroll, Jenn DeFeo, Matthew P. Graven, Davis D. Janowski, Jeremy A. Kaplan, Sarah Pike, Laarni Almendrala Ragaza, Michael J. Steinhart

ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Michal Dluginski COPY CHIEF Elizabeth A. Parry

STAFF EDITORS Gary Berline (Online), Daniel S. Evans, Tony Hoffman, Michael Kobrin, Erik Rhey

ASSISTANT EDITOR Kyle Monson

SENIOR WRITER Cade Metz COPY EDITORS Erin Hollaway, Jessica Levine, Ann Ovodow, Steven Wishnia

PRODUCTION MANAGER Nicholas Cosmo

COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Anita Anthony

INTERNS Douglas Borenstein, Natalie Goel, Molly K. McLaughlin, Erin Simon

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Greg Alwang, Helen Bradley, Bruce Brown, Marge Brown, Sheryl Canter, John Clyman, Richard V. Dragan, John C. Dvorak, Les Freed, Sally Wiener Grotta, Bill Howard, Don Labriola, David Linthicum, Bill Machrone, Edward Mendelson, Jan Ozer, Charles Petzold, Alfred Poor, Neil Randall, Sarah L. Roberts-Witt, Winn L. Rosch, Barry Simon, Craig Stinson, M. David Stone, Don Willmott

SENIOR ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Cynthia Rhett ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORS Sarah Crumb, Liana Zamora

GRAPHICS DIRECTOR David Foster GRAPHIC ARTIST Aaron Able CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Thom O’Connor

PC MAGAZINE LABS

DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Craig Ellison TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Richard Fisco

LEAD ANALYSTS Cisco Cheng, Sahil Gambhir, Oliver Kaven, Glenn Menin, Neil J. Rubenking, Joel Santo Domingo, Sascha Segan

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EXTREMETECH

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, INTERNETJim Louderback TECHNICAL DIRECTORLoyd Case

SENIOR TECHNOLOGY ANALYSTDave Salvator TECHNOLOGY ANALYSTJason Cross SENIOR NEWS EDITORMark Hachman

COMMUNITY MANAGERJim Lynch TECHNICAL ADVISORNick Stam

CORPORATE PRODUCTION

SENIOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGERS Milena Emery, Ivis Fundichely

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®

*See ViewSonic.com for detailed awards list. Leading stand-alone, branded monitor by sales (CRT and LCDs combined; iSuppli/Stanford Resources Monitrak®_{and Flat Panel}

Monitrak,®_{2Q04 report). Specifications, availability and pricing subject to change without notice. Copyright © 2004 ViewSonic Corporation. All rights reserved. [12110-00E 08/04]}

ViewSonic's new super bright VP912b 19" LCD with ultra-fast video response wins every time. Bring next generation image quality to your home or office. ClearMotiv™ Video Technology, 12 millisecond response and a high-brightness 400-nit (typ.) panel deliver startling clarity for today’s video/web conferencing, gaming, e-learning, and digital video applications with virtually no ghosting. Space saving thin profile, stylish design and incredible video quality – you’ll get it all from ViewSonic’s growing line of fast-response displays. With innovative products designed to meet your needs, ViewSonic continues to be the choice of professionals as the #1 display brand in the US,* earning more than 1000 awards worldwide.

Add personal TV to this versatile desktop with ViewMate®_{Desktop Collection accessories.}

Think fast

© 2004 Covad Communications Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Covad, Covad Communications and the Covad logo are registered trademarks of Covad Communications Group, Inc. Service is not available in all areas. Cisco, Cisco Systems, the Cisco Systems logo, and the Cisco Square Bridge logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries.

Rewrite the book.

Covad VoIP is business-class broadband that

truly integrates voice and data. Manage all

of your communications from a single screen,

simplify your network, increase productivity and

save up to 40%. Interested? Call 1-866-807-4766

or read more about it at voipthebook.com

www.pcmag.com NOVEMBER 16, 2004 P C M A G A Z I N E 21

P I P E L I N E

www.pcmag.com/pipeline

LATE SEPTEMBER’S Ultrawide-band World conference in San Jose, California brought con-crete evidence that a new breed of wireless technology will result in real products in 2005. Ultra wideband (UWB) has powerful backers, but it faces substantial chal-lenges from new strains of Wi-Fi technology, espe-cially 802.11n.

While 802.11-based wire-less technologies carve out a particular portion of spectrum to

operate in, UWBsends out tiny bursts of radio over many frequencies. Data goes out in mil-lions of pulses per second and is reassembled by a receiving UWBdevice.

San Diego-based Pulse~LINK’s demonstra-tion in San Jose included a single chipset simultaneously achieving gigabit UWBdata rates, data rates of up to 125 Mbps over stan-dard home or office power lines, and data rates of up to hundreds of megabits over cable television networks.

Pulse~LINK’s president, Bruce Watkins, says there are many applications for UWB. “You might bring a new DVDplayer home, plug it

into the wall, and have it auto-matically networked,” he says. “Or imagine wire-lessly streaming video from a camcorder to the hard drive on a PC.”

Wi-Fi’s momentum looms large, though. “The window of market entry for new wireless technolo-gies is closing rapidly,” says Dr. Predrag Fil-ipovic, consulting analyst with The Diffusion Group. “While UWB may offer greater throughput than today’s 802.11 solu-tions, new consumer multimedia systems will require longer ranges than UWBpromises. Moreover, 802.11n has plenty of ammunition— 100 Mbps or more—to address bandwidth-intensive applications across distances.”

Pulse~LINK’s chipset will be available mercially in the third quarter of 2005. The com-pany’s demonstration came two weeks after Intel, NEC, Texas Instruments, and Wisair showed prototype UWBproducts interoperat-ing at the Intel Developer Forum conference. Intel plans to ship UWBproducts in 2005. Stay tuned.—Sebastian Rupley

Will Ultra Wideband Survive?

It’s controversial, but it could be a big wireless story next year.

Attributing much of the growth to falling flash-memory costs and more consumer choice in both players and online music services, researchers at IDC see the market for compressed-audio devices, such as MP3 players, skyrocketing.

I Want My MP3

Source: IDC, September 2004 *Projected

Global Sales of Compressed Audio Players (in billions)

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

$39.60

MP3PLAYERS are now in sunglasses. Oakley’s Thump line of shades is the first-ever example of MP3eyewear.

They’re available in seven combinations of lenses and colors.

The shades have earphones and lenses that flip up and down. But they’re not cheap by either

MP3player or sunglass standards. A 128MBmodel stores 2 hours of music and costs $395; a 256MBmodel stores 4 hours and costs $495. They’ll be in Circuit City and Oakley O retail outlets in late November.

Meanwhile, the market for compressed audio players of all kinds—portable and not—is exploding. (See the chart.)—SR

No Cheap Sunglasses

Sony has sizable moves afoot for its market-leading Play-Station gaming consoles. A re-designed, svelte version of the PlayStation 2 console is slated to go on sale in November. The new PS2is about the size of a hardcover book, and much more portable than the current console (see the photo). It weighs less than half as much as the current version and is much thinner.

Meanwhile, the PS2’s suc-cessor, due out next year and likely to arrive at May’s E3

show, will work with Blu-Ray discs, which offer 54GBof stor-age—several times the capac-ity of DVDs. Sony is betting that the huge installed base of PS2

users—27 million in the United States, according to Jack Tret-ton, a Sony executive vice president—will upgrade and popularize the Blu-Ray media format.—SR

PS2 Redo

ILLUSTRATION BY TERRY COLON

T E C H N O L O G Y T R E N D S & N E W S A N A L Y S I S

P C M A G A Z I N E NOVEMBER 16, 2004 www.pcmag.com 22

P I P E L I N E •

www.pcmag.com/pipeline

Easy Wait at Gate 58

A LATE BURST

In one fell swoop,

IBM appears to have

wrested the record

for world’s fastest

supercomputer from

a Japanese system

called the Earth

Simulator. Although

the only results at

this point are from

internal tests, IBM

reports that its

Blue-Gene/L system has

system set its record

in 2002, National

Science Foundation

officials sounded

dire warnings about

the United States

losing its

competi-tive edge in high-end

computing.

YOU GET TO the airport 90 minutes before the flight and breeze through security. At the gate, you find out your connect-ing flight is late, so you’ve got a couple hours to kill. If the airport has Wi-Fi, why not watch TVon your laptop?

OnAir Entertainment, a Silicon Valley startup, builds media servers that record broadcast, cable, or satellite TV, so airport Wi-Fi providers can offer it along with wireless Internet access. Already, users at the 26 gates at Austin’s Bergstrom airport who log on to the Wayport Wi-Fi network will see a new option: “Watch Live TV.” Users can watch any of eight TVchannels live or any show aired in the last day.

The Austin deployment is the test run for Wi-Fi TV, says OnAir President Rand Bleimeister. “Until now, if you wanted to watch TV

in the airport, you watched what the bartender picked,” he says. How much will it cost?

That’s up to Wi-Fi hot spot operators, Bleimeister says. It could be rolled into the airport Wi-Fi access fee.

Other Wi-Fi users don’t have to worry about losing bandwidth to Montel Williams fans. “The access points have more capacity than the T1 lines feeding them,” Bleimeister says. And if bandwidth ever becomes a problem, the operators could limit the TV connec-tions to make sure data comes first.—Bill Howard

CLEARLY, ATTEMPTS TO prevent viruses and worms from infecting the Net aren’t working. So a couple of recent National Science Foundation Cyber Trust research grant recipients are taking a natural-istic approach: If you can’t beat

them, contain them. The Carnegie Mellon University-based Security Through Interaction Model-ing research center, with $6.4 million in NSFfunding, will examine the ecology of computer networks. One project will be to model healthy

network interaction to see how it differs from network activity under an attack.

Another site taking a similar approach is the Center for Internet Epidemiology and Defenses, which received a $6.2 million NSFgrant. It’s led by Stefan Savage of the University of California at San Diego and Vern Paxson, chief scientist at the International

Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California.

“In terms of detection, the state of the art is very poor,” says Paxson. “You don’t even know an attack has happened until your inbox is full.”

So one of the center’s goals will be to focus on how a global early-warning system could issue timely attack alerts. Part of that work, says Paxson, will be creating a vast collection of traps or “honey pots” fed by a network of sensors scattered around the Internet. The difficult part will be determining what tactics could quickly contain an out-break, such as blocking certain traffic.—John R. Quain

TALKING HEAD

For the third time, Richard Wallace’s online chatbot, Alice, was awarded

the Loebner prize for most human cyber-conversationalist. If you’re lonely, you can chat

with Alice at

www.alicebot.org.

She is aware that she won the prize, by the way.

ILLUSTRATION BY TERRY COLON; PHOTOGRAPHY BY CORBIS/PUMCHSTOCK

For many photographers, digital cameras often “over-cook” images when process-ing them for savprocess-ing. Adobe is jumping on that issue, gaining backers for a standardized format for raw digital images.

When digital images are saved as JPEGor TIFFfiles, they are altered from the original raw image file, and image artifacts can crop up. Adobe’s new Digital Negative (DNG) specification and free converter tool (www.adobe .com/dng), let users save images—from more than 65 camera types—before any processing goes on inside the camera.

Raw files give photogra-phers, especially professionals and enthusiasts, “unprece-dented control over the pro-cessing of their images,” says Aaron Weiss, a director in Hewlett-Packard’s consumer imaging and printing division. “But the lack of an interopera-ble standard for raw file for-mats restricts the use of these files between devices and across workflows.”

Initial support has been strong, and many well-known professional photographers are endorsing DNG. “Within five years, it will be imple-mented in the majority of high-end cameras,” predicts Paul Worthington, senior analyst at Future Image.—SR

Photos in

The Raw

COMING ATTRACTIONS

P C M A G A Z I N E NOVEMBER 16, 2004 www.pcmag.com 24

P I P E L I N E •

www.pcmag.com/pipeline

For more new products see www.pcmag.com/productbulletin

Good Thing, Small Package

M

easuring just 2.3 by 4 by 1.7 inches (HWD), and weighing in at a mere 7.7 ounces, the Olympus C-7000 Zoomis one of the smallest and lightest 7.1-megapixel cameras out there. Users can achieve up to 30x zoom capability by combining the 5x optical zoom lens with 6x digital zoom. Choose from 143 different auto-focus target zones to focus on virtually any area of your composition without reframing the shot. The C-7000 also features a 2.0-inch LCDscreen, four user-definable settings,

and a built-in function to correct red-eye. —Molly K. McLaughlin

$600 street. Olympus America Inc., www.olympus america.com.

Sweeter

Microsoft

Suite

L

ooking for an entry-level home-produc-tivity package? The Microsoft Works Suite 2005delivers Microsoft Word

2002 and the latest versions of Microsoft Works, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard, Microsoft Money Standard, Microsoft Picture It! Premium, and Microsoft Streets & Trips (with enhanced GPSsupport). New to the suite are a Dictionary and PowerPoint Viewer. The Calendar now lets up to four people create separate calendars. The new

Encarta Search Bar allows for continu-ous access to the Encarta database, with refreshed content every seven to ten days.—MKM

$99.95 list. Microsoft Corp., www .microsoft.com/products/works.

Fast Tungsten Handheld

T

he palmOne Tungsten T5PDAhas a 416-MHz Intel

XScale processor—the fastest currently available in a Palm OSdevice—plus 215MBof available memory and a 320-by-480 screen. Plug the T5

into any USBport and the unit pops up in Windows’ My Computer directory,

looking and acting just like a USBflash drive. The unit comes bundled with

Documents To Go 7 for viewing files and both Mac and Windows desktop

software, and it has Bluetooth wireless connectivity. The “nonvolatile” file system keeps information safe even

when the unit is not charged.—MKM

$399 direct. palmOne Inc., www.palmone.com/us.

Space-Saving Desktop PC

he MPCClientPro 414 All-in-One desktop computer is a full-featured

PCintegrated into the back of a flat-panel display—ideal for those in cramped quarters. The system can function as a PC, TV, DVD

player, CDplayer, and MP3player, and the touch screen eliminates the need to use a keyboard and mouse for every function. Available with either a 15- or 17-inch screen; the whole unit can be mounted

on the wall.—MKM

$1,849 direct (17-inch display). MPC Computers LLC, www.mpccorp.com.

Stylish Gaming Case

Looking to build your dream system? Hardcore gamers will love the high-gloss paint (available in four colors) and

LCDtemperature readout of the

MGE Viperchassis. The case features front-mount fan ports, seven expansion bays, top-mounted

I/Oports, and a 500-watt ATX

power supply.—MKM

$99.99 direct. MGE Company, www.xgbox.com.

Save Your Surfing

Save, search, and organize the information you gather on the Internet using Surf-Saver 6.Integrating seam-lessly with Internet Explorer (version 5.5 or later), the utility lets you save pages from your browser and

YOU KNOW YOUR TEAM WON.

BUT

DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED

IN THE COACH’S OFFICE

AFTER THE GAME?

Add AOL

®

for Broadband on top of

your basic high-speed Internet connection, and get a

whole lot more from your online experience. Like Sports 180: the latest news, highlights and features from the

five major sports in a three-minute recap. Twice daily. Plus all your other favorite action. So high-speed sports fans

MEET

To sign up, call 1-888-AOL-4-YOU or visit aol.com

High-Speed Sports Fans MEET The Fly On The Locker Room Wall.

©2004 Samsung Electronics America, Inc. Samsung and MagicTune are registered marks of Samsung Electronics Corp., Ltd. Screen images simulated.

Samsung’s 193P display.

You have a place called home, but this is where you live. So live well, with our ultra-refined, 193P display. Ergonomically designed to move like you move, it’s yet another example why we’ve won over 67 design awards worldwide. And why, at Samsung, we engineer our monitors to fit the people who use them.

Visit www.samsungusa.com/monitor or call 1-800-SAMSUNG

• 19" Analog/Digital TF T-LCD

• Full pivot, tilt and swivel; wall mountable • 178°/178° — Widest viewing angle of any LCD • MagicTuneTM_{on-screen image control}

www.pcmag.com NOVEMBER 16, 2004 P C M A G A Z I N E 27

www.pcmag.com/editorschoice

In the market to buy? Here are our latest Editors’ Choices in the leading technology categories—the products we’ve picked as the best from the hundreds that PC Magazine Labs has been testing. For links to the complete reviews, including dates of publication, visit

www.pcmag.com/editorschoice.

EDITORS’ CHOICES

NOVEMBER 2–NOVEMBER 15, 2004

K •Turtle Beach AudioTron

AT-100 (music)

DIGITAL VIDEO RECORDER •SnapStream Beyond TV 3 HDTVs

•NEC PlasmaSync 61XM2+/S •Sharp Aquos 37-inch LCD TV

CAMERAS

ULTRACOMPACT •Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 COMPACT

•Canon PowerShot S60 •Casio Exilim Pro EX-P600 •Kodak EasyShare LS743 SUPERZOOM

•Olympus Camedia C-765 Ultra Zoom

ENTHUSIAST

•Konica Minolta DiMage A2 •Leica Digilux 2

•Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom •Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom DIGITAL SLR DESKTOP PCs & SERVERS

GAMING DESKTOPS

•Falcon Northwest FragBox Pro •Falcon Northwest Mach V •Velocity Micro Vision FX MULTIMEDIA DESKTOP •Dell Dimension 8400 MEDIA CENTER PC

HP Media Center Photosmart PC •IBM ThinkCentre S50 ENTRY-LEVEL SERVER •IBM eServer xSeries 306 ENTERPRISE SERVER •HP Compaq Presario

R3000Z TABLET PCs

•Motion Computing M1400 •Toshiba Portégé M205-S809

MOBILE DEVICES

PDAs

•HP iPaq hx4700 •palmOne Zire 72 PHONE/E-MAIL DEVICE

•HP Deskjet 5150 (ink jet) •Lexmark C510n (color laser) PERSONAL AIOs

•Brother MFC-3420 (ink jet) •Brother MFC-8420 (laser) •Canon MultiPass MP390

(ink jet) PHOTO PRINTERS

•Canon i9900 Photo Printer •Canon Pixma iP4000

Epson PictureMate •Epson Stylus Pro 4000 NETWORK PRINTERS •HP Color LaserJet 4650n •HP LaserJet 9000dn •Xerox Phaser 4500DT •Xerox Phaser 7750DN

DISPLAYS & STORAGE •ATI Radeon 9800 XT

MAINSTREAM GRAPHICS CARD

•PNY Verto GeForce 5700 FX Ultra DVD BURNERS •BenQ DW830A 8X DL •HP DVD Movie Writer

dc4000

•Memorex True 8X External Dual Format Recorder

•Microtek ScanMaker 6100 Pro IMAGE EDITORS

•Adobe Photoshop CS (pro) •Adobe Photoshop Elements

2.0 (consumer)

PHOTO ALBUM SOFTWARE •Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 PHOTO SHARING

•OurPictures •smugmug

PHOTO-PRINTING SERVICE •Shutterfly

DIGITAL AUDIO & VIDEO

VIDEO EDITORS

•Adobe Video Collection 2.5 •Pinnacle Studio Plus 9 CD/DVD-BURNING SUITE •Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 DVD AUTHORING

•Sonic MyDVD Studio 6 •Ulead DVD Workshop 2 SLIDE SHOW CREATOR •Arcsoft DVD SlideShow PORTABLE AUDIO •Altec Lansing inMotion •Apple iPod

•Apple iPod Mini

•Belkin Digital Camera Link •Delphi XM Roady2 •Klipsch ProMedia GMX D-5.1 PC MEDIA PLAYER

•Microsoft Windows Media Player 10

MUSIC STORE •Napster 2.0

HP Media Center Photosmart m1180

Epson PictureMate

P C M A G A Z I N E NOVEMBER 16, 2004 www.pcmag.com

•3Com Office Connect Wireless 54Mbps 11g Travel Router

•Savage: The Battle for Newerth SPORTS

Madden NFL 2005 REAL-TIME STRATEGY •Rise of Nations: Thrones

and Patriots

•eMedia Beginner Guitar Method 3.0

•Math Mission:

The Race to Spectacle City Arcade, The Amazing Arcade Adventure

•VTech V.Smile Learning System, Smartbridge Library •Zoombinis Island Odyssey REFERENCE & HOBBIES •Coin Collector’s Assistant

Plus

NOVEMBER 2–NOVEMBER 15, 2004

EXTERNAL DRIVES •Transcend 1.8” Portable

Hard Drive

•ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 14 Office

PDF CREATION •Adobe Acrobat 6.0 •FinePrint pdfFactory

PRO 1.57

•Jaws PDF Creator 3.0 DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT •ScanSoft PaperPort Pro 9

Office •Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 E-MAIL CLIENT

•Norton AntiVirus 2005

NEW

•ZoneAlarm Security Suite 5 ANTISPYWARE

•Ad-Aware SE Plus 1.0.2 •SpySweeper 3.0 •PKZip 8.0 for Windows •StuffIt Deluxe 8.0

•Desktop DNA Pro 4.7 TOOLBARS •IBM Lotus Notes and

Domino 6.5

Device Developer 5.6 (mobile) •SQL Anywhere Studio 9

(mobile)

S

tandar

d

Prof

essional

.NET Edition

2

Ja

va

®Edition

3

De

veloper

Adv

anced

Which edition of Crystal Reports

®

is right for you?

Crystal Reports 10

Report Author/IT

Editions Bundled Developer Editions Full Developer Editions

Report Creation

Visual report designer for rapid data access and formatting

•

•

•

1

•

1

•

•

Customizable templates for faster, more consistent formatting

•

•

•

•

Repository for reuse of common report objects across multiple reports4

•

•

•

Data Access

PC -based and Microsoft® _{ODBC/OLE DB for MS Access and SQL Server}

•

•

•

•

•

•

Enterprise database servers (ODBC, native)

•

•

1

•

1

•

•

Custom, user -defined data through JavaBeans™

•

•

•

Custom, user-defined data through ADO and .NET

•

•

•

Report Integration

Report viewing APIs (.NET and COM SDKs)

•

•

•

Report viewing APIs ( Java SDK)

•

•

•

Extensive report viewer options ( DHTM L, ActiveX, Java Plug - in, and more)

•

•

APIs for run-time report creation and modification

•

Report Parts for embedding report objects in wireless and portal apps

•

•

•

•

Report Deployment

Crystal Reports components for report viewing, printing, and exporting:

a) Java reporting component

•

•

•

b) .NET reporting component

•

•

•

c) COM reporting component

•

•

Full featured report exporting

•

•

•

Report server (Crystal Enterprise Embedded deployment license)

•

1 Limited functionality. 2 Bundled with Microsoft® _{Visual Studio}® _{.NET and Boland}® _{C#Builder ™.}

3 Bundled with BEA WebLogic Workshop™ and Boland® _JBuilder®_{. 4 This feature is available on the Crystal Enterprise CD, included in the Crystal Reports 10 package.}

We’d like to think that not all

perfect matches are made in heaven

.

Perfect matches can be made here too. In order to quickly determine which Crystal Reports® _{best suits}

your project requirements, we’ve provided this basic feature chart. Crystal Reports® _{10 simplifies the}

process of accessing, formatting, and tightly integrating data into Windows and web applications via an enhanced designer, flexible data connectivity options, and rich Java™_{, .NET, and COM SDKs.}

To learn more about Crystal Reports 10, compare over 150 different features across versions, or to access technical resources like the Developer Zone and evaluation downloads, visit: www.businessobjects.com/dev/p9. To ask more specific report project related questions, contact an account manager directly at 1-888-333-6007.

The Business Objects logo is a r

egist

er

ed tr

ademark of Business Objects SA

. Cop

yright © 2004 Business Objects SA

. All rights r

eser

accessed. The MCE2005 UInow includes support for DVDand

CDburning. All told, if you ded-icate a Media Center PCto play-ing audio and video, showplay-ing photos, and watching TV, it’s possible that you’ll never even see the standard Windows UI

lurking beneath.

Three times is a charm, and never is this truer than with

Mi-crosoft products. With its brand new Windows

XP

Media

Cen-ter Edition 2005 operating system, Microsoft may have

un-leashed the perfect

OS

for a home

PC

.

•

Fulfilling the promise of

the previous two iterations,

MCE

2005 is a markedly better OS,

supported by markedly better graphics hardware—particularly the

TV

tuners,

which now deliver picture quality comparable to what you get from a good

TV

.

The Home PC, Perfected

P C M A G A Z I N E NOVEMBER 16, 2004 www.pcmag.com 30

For virtually anyone buying a new PCfor home use, we can’t think of a reason not to go with an MCE2005 box. Even price is no longer an issue, as you should be able to find entry-level models for $500 (without monitor), versus the $1,000 or so that was the cost of entry with the previous offer-ings. That’s because MCE2005 is built atop Windows XP

Home (rather than the costlier

XP Pro), and Microsoft no longer requires that PCmakers include a TVtuner and remote control. So going with MCE

2005 as the OSshould cost you only about $50 more than a comparably equipped PC run-ning Windows XPHome.

In a typical $1,000 Media Center box, you get a capable

TVtuner (MCE2005 supports three), an FMradio tuner, digi-tal video recorder (DVR) soft-ware with a free program guide, DVDand CDplayer, MP3

and WMAripper, video player, photo player, and Web browser. Output can be sent to a PC

dis-play or a TV.

Perhaps the biggest im-provement in MCE2005 is sup-port for companion Media Center Extender appliances (MCXfor short). An MCXlets you wirelessly stream most (but not all) of your Media Center–resident digital content to another TVin the house— even if the host PCis occu-pied with other MCE2005 chores (see the sidebar, “A Near-Perfect Add-on for the Perfect Home OS”). In addi-tion, Media Center PCs can now sport up to three TV

tuners. That means you can record several shows simulta-neously, a trick TiVo still can’t accomplish.

While the view-from-the-couch interface of MCE2005 looks much the same, its useful-ness is evolving. Icons for each of the apps (My Pictures, My Music, My TV, Radio, and so on) expand when you make the pointer hover over them, reveal-ing the latest three events (pro-grams, slide shows, albums) you

Alienware DHS-511

Look at the Alienware DHS-511 and you’ll see the future of Media Center PCs. Unlike most models that have come to market, the DHS-511 has a chas-sis that makes it look the part of a home-theater component, not a PC. It’s also one of the first Media Center machines we’ve tested that use an AMDAthlon 64 CPU(the 3500+) rather than the Intel Pentium 4.

Instead of using a vertical PC

tower, Alienware houses the

DHS-511 in a black horizontal case. When the front access panel is closed, all you see is a clean front panel. The flip-down panel covers a media card reader as well as USBand FireWire ports (additional USB

and FireWire ports on the back of the system).

The slot-load optical drive keeps the clean look of the front panel. We also love the two-line backlit LCD readout on the

BY BILL HOWARD

OUR EDITORS’ CHOICE among

this first crop of MCE 2005 machines, the HP Media Center Photo-smart PC m1050y Series delivers some unique features and extras.

THE MAGAZINE WORLD’S LARGEST COMPUTER-TESTING

FACILITY

F

I

R

S T

36 Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router 43 McAfee Personal Firewall Plus 6.0 43 Norton Personal Firewall 2005 44ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups 44 QuickBooks SimpleStart

46Paint Shop Pro 9 46PassAlong.com 50 Canon EOS 20D 52 SecureZIP 8.0 for Windows 52 WinRAR 3.4

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOM O’CONNOR

front, which shows pertinent information. Watch TVand it displays the name of the show you’re watching; play music and it displays the track time, track name, and artist info.

The inside of the DHS -511 case is roomy, with space for a couple of additional hard drives to augment

the 160GBmain drive

al-ready installed. The DHS-511 is pretty quiet; under the hood are only the Zalman CPUcooler and a single low-speed case fan blowing cool air over the ATI

Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT

graphics card. Performance is fine for multimedia applica-tions and gaming, though this is no high-end gaming box.

Sitting in your easy chair, you’ll appreciate the wireless keyboard and Gyration mouse, which you can hold in midair to control cursor movement, no mousing surface required. We also like the TV-like re-mote, which is better looking than the Microsoft-mandated remotes that shipped with ear-lier Media Center PCs.

For the money, we’d prefer to see a larger hard drive and dual TVtuners. But we can’t argue with the DHS-511’s sleek,

AV-friendly design.—Joel Santo Domingo

Alienware DHS-511

With 2.2-GHz AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 1GB 400-MHz DDR SDRAM, 160GB SATA hard drive, ATI Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT graphics, DVD±RW/RAM drive, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound card, Klipsch Promedia 5.1 speakers, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, $2,380 direct. Alienware Corp., www.alienware.com. OVERALL_llllm

Music: 90 (out of 100); Photos: 92; Video: 93; Gaming: 83

Gateway 820GM

What can you say about the system that finished last on vir-tually every performance test? How about “Buy this ma-chine!”? The Gateway 820GM

meets one of Microsoft’s goals with MCE 2005: to provide a solid multimedia experience for around $1,000.

To get there, Gateway turned not just to Microsoft but to Intel and its BTX(basic technology extended) motherboard, and the chassis Intel created to house it. The BTXis the moth-erboard Intel expects will re-place the venerable ATX

motherboard, and the new chassis optimizes airflow across the components and mother-board using just two big, slow-turning, whisper-quiet fans. Gateway rates the system at 40 decibels maximum, quiet enough for the living room. The front provides for two optical drive bays, which Gateway fills with a DVD-ROM drive and a double-layer, dual-format (DVD_±RW) unit. Besides a front-mount flash card reader,

you’ll see USB, FireWire, and audio jacks in front, but no front video inputs.

The reason for Gate-way’s lower performance (at least in this field of speed demons) is the choice of money-saving components: a

3-GHz Pentium 4 530 and ATI

x300 graphics (which does use the BTXmotherboard’s PCI -Ex-press bus instead of AGP). Truth be told, though, these compo-nents are just fine for the multi-media chores a Media Center

PCwill be asked to do. The only area in which it may disappoint is high-res, high-action gaming. Also on the affordability front, Gateway used Intel’s 7.1-channel integrated audio (not the Creative Labs Audigy) and a modest pair of speakers. Photo buffs are fairly well served with Microsoft PictureIt Photo Pre-mium 9. For burning video, photo, or audio discs (and back-ups of all your files), there’s Nero Express 6.

Our test everything capable. It’s ready to roll for TV, video, music, and

photos. For those looking to try a Media Center PC without breaking the bank, Gateway hits the sweet spot. The price is right and the performance is reasonable.—BH

Gateway 820GM

With Intel Pentium 4 530 (3.0 GHz), 1GB DDR SDRAM, 250GB SATA drive, ATI Radeon X300 graphics (128MB), double layer DVD±RW drive, DVD-ROM drive, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, $1,250 direct (19-inch FPD1950 LCD panel, $600 direct). Gateway Inc., www.gateway.com.

OVERALLllllm Music 82 (out of 100); Photos: 92; Video: 98; Gaming: 74

HP Media Center Photosmart

PC m1050y Series

The new HP Media Center Photosmart PC

m1050y Series is cur-rently your best bet in a multimedia PC. It’s a feature-rich product that melds the PCand entertain-ment worlds quite impressively. The m1050y uses the same chassis that helped the previ-ous model win our Editors’

www.pcmag.com NOVEMBER 16, 2004 P C M A G A Z I N E 31 THERE’S A PC

lurking within the Alienware DHS-511’s sleek AV chassis.

L O O K S

54 Ask Jeeves 54 A9.com 55 OQO model 01 56 Samsung ML-2250 56 Xerox DocuMate 252

56 Samsung SCX-4100 Digital Productivity Center

56 Primera Signature Z1 CD/DVD Printer 56 Ricoh Aficio CL3000e

REDdenotes Editors’ Choice.

FOR A NEW MEDIA CENTER PCon a budget, consid-er the Gateway 820GM entry.